The last couple of years have seen a major surge in India’s success on the badminton circuit. PV Sindhu’s purple patch began with the historic silver at the Rio Olympics, while Kidambi Srikanth created a wave with his performances in the men’s singles events across the globe in 2017.
Not just these two, HS Praneeth bagged the US Open Grand Prix Gold, and B Sai Praneeth the Thailand Grand Prix title last year. In fact, there was a time when India had six male shuttlers in the world’s top 35.
However, 2018 so far has mostly been disappointing for the big names, including PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and, even Prannoy and Praneeth.
PV Sindhu’s Title-Less 2018
The year is almost drawing to a close, and Sindhu is yet to win her first title or gold in 2018. This comes as a disappointment after her watershed last year, which saw her bag three titles – India Open, Korea Open, Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold, and finish second in three – Dubai World Superseries Finals, Hong Kong Open and BWF World Championship.
At the beginning of this year, Sindhu lost to Saina Nehwal in the quarter-finals of the Indonesia Masters. Next up was the India Open, where Sindhu was obviously the crowd favourite. However, an unseeded Beiwen Zhang from USA defeated Sindhu 18-21, 21-11, 20-22 in a thrilling final. About 8 months later, and Beiwen once again stunned the 23-year-old. The American shuttler was still unseeded, but this time it was the opening round of the Denmark Open.
Between those two tournaments, Sindhu has lost in four finals (Commonwealth Games, Thailand Open, World Championships, Asian Games), two semi-finals (England Open, Malaysia Open), three quarter-finals (Badminton Asia Championships, Indonesia Open, China Open) and even crashed out in the pre-quarters of the Japan Open.
Kidambi’s Slump After a Record-Breaking Year
In 2017, Kidambi Srikanth became the first Indian, and fourth shuttler ever to win four titles in a season.
In 2018, he has managed to reach just one final so far.
What’s surprising is that Kidambi has in fact been knocked out in the early stages of tournaments. Two of his defeats have come in the Round of 32, which includes the Asian Games, while three of them – India Open, England Open, World Championships – in the Round of 16.
After early exits in the England Open and India Open, Kidambi reached the final of men’s singles event at the Commonwealth Games – his only final this year. However, he had to settle for a silver after losing 21-19, 14-21, 14-21 to Lee Chong Wei.
It was around this time that Kidambi displaced Viktor Axelsen to become world number 1 shuttler – the first Indian male and second overall after Saina Nehwal to achieve the feat. He has now slipped to the sixth place in the men’s singles standing.
At the Asian Games, he suffered a shock loss against 28th ranked Wong Wing Ki Vincent of Hong Kong in the men’s singles second round. Post that, he was knocked out of the quarter-finals of both, China and Japan Open.
World number 15 HS Pranoy hasn’t had much success this year either. He finished fourth at the Commonwealth Games, was knocked out of the Asian Games in the Round of 32, and has failed to make it to finals of any tournaments this year. And B Sai Praneeth too has mostly been on the wrong side of results.
The year, however, is not over yet. With a number of tournaments including the French Open, Macau Open, Hong Kong Open and World Tour Finals, the Indian shuttlers could turn things around. But with how things have panned out so far, one thing is for sure, 2018 will be no match to 2017 for Indian badminton.
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